Supplies and Intra-Union Acquisitions of Goods under VAT

  • Date:
  • Location: Gamla torget 6 Brusewitzsalen
  • Doctoral student: Mikael Ek
  • Contact person: Pernilla Rendahl
  • Disputation


The objective of this thesis is to analyze the VAT rules regarding supplies and intra-union acquisitions of goods based on the notion that a purpose of harmonized VAT is to further the internal market. This objective originates from the tension that has been created between the two mentioned transaction types, where a transaction involving goods is treated one way if it is carried out domestically and another if it is done in a cross-border context.

How transactions are classified determine different obligations for the taxable person that carries them out. Among other things, it affects the place of supply and thus which member state that has the right to tax the transaction. It also affects which kind of administrative obligations the taxable person has and where he or she needs to fulfill them.

Since the idea of the internal market within the EU is to create an area without internal frontiers where free movement of goods (among other things) is ensured, it can be questioned if a harmonized system that treats cross-border supplies differently from domestic supplies fully improves the function of the internal market.

To answer that question, it is necessary to study how supplies and intra-union acquisitions of goods are treated within the VAT system, both regarding the classification of the transactions and the consequences the classification result in. Further, it is also required to compare the findings regarding the VAT treatment of said rules with various benchmarks concerning how VAT rules should be constructed in light of the purpose to further the internal market.

By conducting a study based on these parameters, it is possible to shed some light on a topic that has been intensely discussed on a European level during the last decade, namely how the VAT treatment of goods should be in the definitive VAT system.